In general, the invention features novel compounds and methods for purifying or detecting proteins of interest.
Determining the enzymatic activity, binding specificity, or three-dimensional structure of a protein often requires the purification of the protein from a complex mixture of other components, such as compounds present in a cell lysate or in vitro translation extract. With the number of known proteins increasing dramatically as a result of whole genome sequencing projects, it has become crucial to find alternatives to traditional, time-consuming monoclonal antibody production for generating affinity reagents for the detection and purification of proteins. In addition, purifying a novel protein using traditional column chromatography methods often requires much trial and error to develop a purification protocol that results in the recovery of the protein in high yield and purity.
Thus, purification methods are needed that may be generally applied to proteins of interest, that utilize inexpensive reagents, and that result in highly purified protein without requiring multiple chromatography steps.